Mmmmelons!

We've got melons! These vines, our Jubilee watermelon and Athena cantaloupe, have stretched their leafy tentacles across the yard and have been showing off their flirty yellow blooms for weeks and weeks. And now, we've got some gorgeous globes peeking out from under their leafy canopies. We've been checking on them every day, and every day we are amazed at their easily visible growth. They literally grow overnight, it seems! This afternoon, I picked up one of the cantaloupes and it gently snapped away from its vine. Exciting!

This picture was taken on Sunday:

And here's that freshly-picked cute little melon with its proud mama:

This one should be ready in a day or two:
Watermelons! Woooohoooo!


My trusty garden companion doing his own freshness inspection:

We've lost a couple of melons to what looks like blossom-end rot. I think I read somewhere that this is an indicator that the plant needs more watering. However, the rest of the vines and fruits look amazing, so I'm not sure how accurate that is.

I'm hoping that one of the watermelons is ready for the picking before we leave for vacation!

Veg Out

In keeping with our usual Saturday morning routine, we hit the farmers' market to check out the goods. Our loot from Saturday:

• 1 bunch organic carrots
• 3 bulbs of organic garlic
• 1 bunch of organic spring onions
• 3 poblano peppers
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• 3 organic onions (1 red, 1 white, 1 yellow)

There was a children's art expo in the park, so it was cool to see lots of families arting it up amongst all the farmers' market vendors. We also bumped into one of my dear, former co-workers, which was a particularly sentimental highlight. And of course, a goofy picture of proof: We spent the rest of Saturday in the Richmond-area visiting with Nick's parents to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday. Saturday night, Nick, my 14 year old sister-in-law, and I went to see the newest Harry Potter movie, which was a bit long, but still a very enjoyable way to end the night. On the ride home from the movie, the three of us reminisced about the books, chatted about our favorite parts and the movie's inconsistencies. Someone overhearing our conversation easily may have mistaken us for talking about old personal friends, as opposed to fictional characters in a kid's book. Isn't it funny how Harry Potter can bring out the nerd in all of us?

This morning we checked out the backyard patch, and, to our delight, found quite a bit of goodies fresh for the picking: lots of black plum paste tomatoes, a couple of heirloom tomatoes, purple bell peppers, a zucchini, and a yellow squash. Plus, gorgeous sunflowers, marigolds, cosmos and Russian sage blooms:We have a vacation coming up soon, and instead of daydreaming about the stunning lake and mountains, all I can wonder is, "Who's gonna pick the veggies from the garden while we're gone?"

Come to the Table

After reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle earlier in the year, I've developed quite the appetite for food, gardening and farming related reading material. From seed catalogs to first-person gardening narratives, I find myself bursting with inspiration and admiration. On a recent library trip, I nabbed Slow Food Nation's Come to the Table, and I dug it so much that I'm actually a little sad to return it! I've already renewed it once out of pure denial that it's not mine.

The book profiles numerous small family farms and the amazingly dedicated people who run them. Reading it, I almost felt a little romantic, just utterly swept off my feet by the commitment and passion that these small farmers have for their craft. Seriously, they love growing food, and they cannot see doing it in any other way than one bolstered by respect for their customers and the ecosystems in which they farm. I mean, it freakin' rocks.

I remember reading once that Tori Amos will only play on a Bosendorfer piano because they're handmade down to the finest detail. She said these pianos were full of soul because they had been so intimately handled and labored on by someone filled with passion for the instrument. I remember thinking (and if you know much about Tori Amos you'd likely agree), "Aww, how eccentrically quaint." I was totally reminded of the Bosendorfer effect while reading this book, totally reminded that the food grown by these farmers is colored by their concentrated passion for the farming process. This food has soul. This food makes mass-produced agribusiness food look like a cheap plastic Casio.

Come to the Table has given me a little bit of fever, and the only cure is to ditch the city in a Green Acres sort of way and do a little farming of my own. Yeah, not likely. Not happening any time soon in this crazy economy and with grad school loans looming in my future. But still. The farmers' passion is totally infectious. I know nothing about raising honey bees, but it seems pretty cool to me. Can I have honey bees in a suburban neighborhood?

And speaking of slow food, I have a hopeful little project coming up. And here's a little hint:

Do the Rot Thing

To be honest, I borrowed the title of this post from some other compost-o-phile whose name I would happily and appropriately credit, but unfortunately cannot recall. But yes, this post is about compost and this year's compost blunders.

We have a spinning compost tumbler that we found (and drooled over) several years ago in a Real Goods catalog. We begged Santa Claus for this black beauty, and my parents, er, Santa Claus made good on our wish. One of the best Christmas presents EVER. It's relatively small and compact and sits right beside our back porch steps, which makes for convenient scrap runs when we're tidying up the kitchen. The base actually has small wheels on it, so when you want to aerate the compost, you just give the bin a good ol' wheel-of-fortune spin, and voila! Here's how easy it tucks in next to our back steps and our shade garden:
I do not think that it's coincidental that the plantain hosta taking residence next to the compost bin is massive. I think it must get some compost juice (mmmm) overflow. Sometimes I come around this corner of the house expecting this mammoth plant to creepily exclaim, "Feeeeeeeed me, Seymore!"

What's so cool about this round bin is that when you're ready to use the black gold contained within, you just roll the bin right off of its base and over to where you're cultivating. Really, it's a snap. My only complaint is that I wish the opening were a bit bigger. I have a tough time getting the shovel easily out. It feels like a complicated game of Operation sometimes, trying to skillfully pull the shovel out without hitting the sides of the opening and dumping the bulk of the compost back into the bin. Of course I could always get a smaller shovel, but that would be too easy, now wouldn't it?

Below is your front-row seat to what the inside of our compost tumbler looks like. We could play one awesome game of I Spy. I spyyyy strawberry hulls! Unbleached coffee filters! Eggshells! Lemon halves! Melon rinds!
This year is the first season that we've managed to get the compost "right." There is a bit of science, I suppose, to composting. You know, it's apparently important to manage the ratio of wet to dry (or green to brown) items. We typically keep a pile of dried leaves or dried grass clippings right in front of the bin so that every time we skip down the steps with a few onion peels and tomato cores or whatever, we just grab a handful of the dry stuff to add in with it. Much to our delight, this was a good strategy for us, and we had the most compost this spring than we've had in the past 3 years.

But, there has been one hiccup. And it has to do with errant seeds. Apparently, you should be mindful of the seeds that sneak their way into your compostables. We weren't. And so, we've had a few interesting surprises this summer. We think it's absolutely hilarious and fun, but then again we're total happy novices at this whole game of gardening.

Hello, random tomato plant growing in our butterfly garden:

And good day to you, young melon vine growing out of the base of our blackberry bramble:

Cheerio, dear melon vine growing vigorously next to our climbing rose (and to you, too, fine Westie boy):

And my all-time fave, the ear of corn pushing up proudly in the songbird garden:
There are a couple of other random vines (we're assuming they're melons) sprouting up all around the yard. I checked yesterday, and the ones growing next to the rose bush and the blackberry bramble have actually blossomed and are fruiting. I'm sure someone more experienced in the gardening biz is rolling their eyes at such sloppy and careless composting, but we see it as a treat, as humorous and humbling little surprises that remind us just how green we are at green thumbin' it.

This post is brought to you by the letter F

Friday, friends, food, film, farmer's market, family, food, film, friends, food, film. That was our weekend. It was a lovely sort of busy-ness, for sure, but I was so wiped from the weekend that I had to take a nap tonight after work!

Friday afternoon, we picked some more ruby red goodness from the rip-roaring tomato patch. Still lots of green little globes hanging on the plants, but we're starting to pluck a pretty steady amount of tomatoes daily:
We drove down to Richmond to have dinner with our friend Jenn, my oldest and dearest childhood friend, and her new partner. We had a long dinner at Weezie's Kitchen in Carytown, catching up and sharing laughs.

Afterwards, Nick and I went to see Food, Inc., which I had been super eager to see ever since seeing Jon Stewart's interview of Robert Kenner on the Daily Show.
It was poignant and moving, and I left the theater feeling a sudden and immense sense of pride in our little backyard patch. Our garden, despite its teeny stature, has nurtured in me an appreciable shift in the way I view my food, and the movie reinforced this with equal measures of both tenderness and a giant whomp in the gut. All I can say is GO SEE IT. If you don't, you're an uninformed idiot. Yup, I said it. Also, if you want to know how you can support your local farmers, check out http://www.localharvest.org/ . Um, now.

Saturday morning, we hit--where else--our beloved downtown farmer's market, which truly took on a greater element of significance for me after having just seen Food, Inc. Our farmer's market score this week:

• three heads of organic garlic
• a pound of patty pan squash
• two striking little eggplants (see below)
• a loaf of artisinal ciabatta bread
• a loaf of artisinal 7 grain bread
• a pound of yellow tomatoes (they're were just too pretty to pass up)
• 2 organic red onions and 2 organic "white hot" onions
• a dozen organic free-range brown eggs

We are probably the only nerds who stop in the middle of the park to pose for pictures with our farmer's market finds:Check out this gorgeous spread from Blenheim Organic Gardens (which is where we nabbed our eggplant, garlic, tomatoes and squash):They were selling these AH-dorably genius salsa kits (neato, right?):We noted that Blenheim Organic Gardens had some of the very same tomatoes at their stand that we're currently growing in our ridiculously robust tomato patch--Arkansas Travelers and the Black Plum Paste tomato. I had a sudden NO-DUH moment when I realized that this is from whom we'd bought our seedlings in the beginning of the season! This prompted a whole conversation of "Hey, we bought our seedlings from you early this season!" and "Oh, yeah? How are they growing?" and "Well, very good in an out-of-control sort of way!" and "Are they ripe now? Yeah? You planted them at the right time then." and "Yeah, we're so happy. These are our first tomato plants!" and "Well, you should try this great recipe for roasting the Black Plum Paste tomatoes." And so on, and it just felt like a farmer's market moment of kismet.

Later on Saturday, my parents and my sister and her daughter made the drive up to Fredericksburg for dinner with us to celebrate my dad's birthday. Happy birthday, old man! My dad is appropriately celebrating his 5th decade by growing, what else, a fu manchu. I'm trying to convince him to use some mustache wax to give the ends a little old-timey bike-peddler curl on the ends. I feel quite sure that he is not taking this suggestion with any modicum of seriousness.

After dinner, the 6 of us headed to Hurkamp Park (same place where our farmer's market is held) for Movies Under the Moon, which was a fundraiser benefitting the Boys and Girls Club. Stretched across several blankets under the stars, we watched the latest Indiana Jones installment. Me and my sister and Indiana Jones:
Sunday, we visited Georgetown with our friends, Katie and Jess, for lunch and a movie (500 Days of Summer, very good). Oh, and in keeping with my affection for cutely baked confections, CUPCAKES! (a la Georgetown Cupcake)

So, in summary, an exhaustingly good weekend filled with food, family and friends, which is the point of life at its most essential, no?

(***Hopefully this rather long post makes up for my week-long hiatus from the blog! I'm talking to you, Katie.)

A Local Brekkie

We don't usually have big breakfasts, but yesterday's farmers' market scores begged us to make something special of them. Our bundle of goodies included:

• a dozen organic free-range brown eggs
• a quart of organic "red creamies" potatoes
• a jar of wildflower honey
• a loaf of Portuguese sweet bread
• a loaf of sourdough, blue cheese and walnut bread
• two bundles of fresh basil
• a block of organic parsley, chive and garlic cheddar cheese
• a dozen ears of white sweet corn
• a watermelon
• three organic red onions
• a quart of slender half-yellow/half-green squash (they're super cute)

When my dogs woke me up this morning and I slogged into the kitchen to let them out into the backyard, I was greeted by the above lovely foods on our little kitchen's cafe table. And, like I said, they begged to be whipped up into something scrumptious. Using local ingredients is important to us, and pulling together something this darn delicious from 99% local ingredients fills my belly with nutrients and my heart with goofy glee.

Ta-da!

• Organic, free-range eggs (prepared with a little rice milk) scrambled with grated parsley, chive, garlic cheddar cheese and that handsome Cherokee Purple tomato +
• a quick hash of finely diced red creamies with red onion and minced garlic +
• a slice of toasted Portuguese sweet bread +
• a small fruit salad of sugar baby melon and blueberries +
• steaming cup of organic fair-trade coffee =

= A terrifically tasty local brekkie!

Holy Tomatoes, Batman!

I dragged home late from work on Friday, utterly zapped and showing wear from a stressful week. I tried to muster some excitement for the weekend, but was simply too exhausted to manage anything more than a quiet whimper of relief on my slow walk home from work. When I finally made my way up the front steps of our house, it only took a kissy greeting and an enthusiastic "I have a surprise for you in the garden" from Nick to infuse me with a bit of curious pep.

And lo: RIPE TOMATOES! I felt like I'd won the lottery or found a golden ticket or was inducted into a fine society of superb and winsome individuals that grow brilliant, lustrous and sweet-smelling things! A crowning achievement! A joyful, unrivaled sense of satisfaction swept the air and high-fives were heartily exchanged. Not one, but all FOUR of heirloom varieties had ripened to a ruby hue right under our noses. My favorite is the handsome Cherokee Purple. It's so beautiful, really! It's the purple-y one, duh!

So cool! I seriously think we should frame this picture below:

And, of course, we had to have a little taste test of our cute little Black Plum Paste tomatoes. The texture was a bit mealy, but our early research had told us that this was to be expected of this variety. Still, nothing compares to a homegrown tomato!

Giving you the bird (feeders)

While one focus for us this summer was to grow food for ourselves, we have also made an attempt to grow food for our local birds. In mid-spring, we cleared and cultivated an entire bed and planted a pack of seeds that eventually will grow into flowers to fill our feathered friends' bellies. The songbird garden is kicking out lots of greenery and a few blooms, but is still a long way from birdy a la carte fare. In the meantime, we've scattered a few stunning bird feeders around our yard to keep our little flock happy and singing.

Remember this great Etsy find? We can hardly keep it filled!
We grabbed this feeder from Libertytown, our local arts and crafts collective, on our anniversary this past June. I think that the 9th wedding anniversary gift has something to do with ceramics or pottery, but we grabbed this purely by coincidence because of its handsome handmade bowl. A bit closer! It could quite possibly double as a little bird bath as well.We nabbed this feeder from the same artist at Libertytown, instantly drawn to its warm blueish-purple body, which is super close the the shade we painted our shutters several summers ago. It really pops against the green foliage of our flowering cherry tree.
We purchased a giant sac of bulk bird seed from Roxbury Mills for about $3.50, which was a definite bargain. Two months and lots of feedings later, it's still half-full and should last long enough to keep feathered friends happily sated for the rest of the summer.

An Evening at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden

It's been a pretty peaceful evening. Like, a life-is-good peaceful evening. Nick went golfing this afternoon, leaving me to a really quiet evening of happy piddling around the house. I had a great walk home from work today talking with my sister, Megan, making plans to hang out later this week. I came home to a house bustling with happy dogs (we're auditioning a new pup here at A Brave New Garden, details to come, possibly much later this week) and fat cats. I made the rounds of the yard, a first round to give the furry ones a bathroom break and some supervised fresh air, and a second round to explore new growth in the veggie gardens and new colors in the songbird garden (again, more details on that to come as well) and snap a few pics for this little blog. I checked out all of the bird feeders and replenished where needed, and spent a peaceful half hour or so pulling weeds around the rose bushes and in the herb garden. (So exciting, right?)


Back inside afterwards, it was time to figure what to do for dinner with the hopeful aim to treat Nick to a yummy and warm supper as soon as he gets home. I decided to make a casserole to incorporate some of the our farmer's market fare from the weekend.

Anyway, I've been listening to an old live Indigo Girls album while making dinner tonight, which recalled a recent Indigo Girls concert and is actually the whole point of this driveling blog post! In mid-June, I met some good friends in Richmond at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden for an outdoor Indigo Girls show. The weather was perfect and the setting just exquisite. So darn pretty!

A few pics of an undeniably grand botanical garden:

In the back there is the conservatory where they've got a live butterfly exhibit! Nick and I hope to check it out before the exhibit leaves in October.
Big, charming sunflowers! We're growing (or trying to grow, more precisely) some sunflowers in the songbird garden out back, and I'll turn a cartwheel if they look half as proud as these gals!
Roses, roses, roses! These were so abundant and colorful that I felt like I was in a scene from Alice in Wonderland. These were the backdrop for the stage, as a matter of fact.
The Indigo Girls (with Julie Wolfe). We had excellent seats. From left: Jacque, Deb, Me and that handsome chunk o'love (a.k.a. Deb's son and our godson), Jackson. Such a cuddly fella!

Oh, and tonight's supper! The dish:

• slowly staling potato, chive and cheddar artisinal bread--cubed
• organic blue, brown and white eggs--beaten with a bit of rice milk
• one finely diced sweet Italian grilled chicken sausage (leftover from last night's dinner)
• finely diced red onion--about 1/4th cup or so
• a handful of roughly chopped artichoke hearts
• finely diced yellow pepper--about 1/4th cup or so
• garlic clove, pressed
• fresh feta
• grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper

I placed the cubed bread (it was sooo deelish when fresh!) in the bottom of a casserole dish, poured a mixture of the next 6 ingredients over the bread cubes and topped it all with freshly crumbled feta and grated Parmesan. Baked for about 30 mins and served alongside ears of locally grown sweet white corn and sugar baby melon, this should be a great summer supper!

Feelin' hot hot hot

We recently harvested our first veggies from our gardens: our hot peppers! And yowsa, they are ohmygosh hot! We've been topping our turkey burgers with them, sprinkling finely diced peppers in our omelets, etc. I've had to take the seeds out because they're just toooo hot! I'm longing for red and juicy homegrown tomatoes for so many reasons, and these peppers have me hungry for some fresh homemade salsa! These peppers would surely add some yummy heat to fresh salsa! I'm hoping that the pepper plants keep kickin' out the peppers into tomato season. If our tomato plants withstand their own might and heft, you better believe I'm using them to make fresh salsa. And I just might share my recipe! Great balls of fire:
I felt a combination of delight and worry as I snapped our first pepper from its bush. I was delighted because it felt like a worthy achievement nurturing a tiny seedling into a piece of food that will nurture us. The worry came from questioning if I was picking the pepper too soon. One taste and it was clear that it was picked at a good time.

I feel so much excitement about the picking to come!

-R

Midnight in the Garden of Food and Evil

Okay, so it was actually about 8:30pm, not midnight. But things were feeling a bit evil. The tomatoes are out of control. Psycho, taking over the garden, and engulfing other plants in a decidedly Blob-like manner.

Below are a couple of (daylight) pictures from last week. Nick is trying to steady the tomato plants with bamboo stakes. This was, alas, a very temporary solution due to monster-like growth:

I suppose the good news is that the plants are robust and healthy. The bad news is that they have completely outgrown their wire cages and their steadily increasing heft has bent and even broken parts of the cages. Even worse, the tomato stalks are so heavy with fruit that the plants are sagging under their weight. Some smaller limbs had already snapped, which freaked out my inner perfectionist a little.

When we got home from work this evening, a couple of the cages were totally bowed over. We made an impromptu trip to Lowe's to see if we could find any type of support that might be more substantial than our wispy bamboo stalks. We settled on 5 foot fence posts and posted them around our plants. We then wrapped nylon trellis netting around the fence posts, secured the netting tightly, and used this to give the plants far more support. The gaps in the netting are fairly large, so we are able easily to reach the fruit when ready. A few pics of the finished trellis netting supports:

And speaking of evil, monster-like things...
Oh! It's just Jordan, thoroughly inspecting the melons!